#TBT: New France’s first permanent settler

Amid fraught relations between the federal government and First Nations, Canadians today could stand to learn from Canada’s first permanent European settler.

It was 398 years ago this week that Louis Hébert signed a contract in Paris to settle in New France.

Hébert, an apothecary and spice trader, had made two forays in 1606 and 1610 to Acadia with a cousin-in-law, seeking to profit from the region’s nascent fur trade. While in Acadia, he was central in establishing good relations with the local Mi’kmaq, exchanging apothecary knowledge with them and providing medical treatment. Hébert also met Samuel Champlain — who would found Quebec City in 1608 — and explored the region as far south as present-day Massachusetts. In 1613, the British destroyed the original Port-Royal settlement, and Hébert was forced back to France.

In 1617, Hébert and Champlain met again in Paris. Champlain, remembering Hébert as a brave and capable pioneer from their days in Acadia, offered him a contract to establish a homestead at the Quebec colony. Quebec was then only a hub for transient fur traders, and Champlain was looking to develop it into a permanent agricultural settlement.

Hébert agreed. After selling his Paris home — and then finding that the fur-trading company had halved the salary upon which he and Champlain had agreed — he took his wife and three children across the Atlantic on March 11, 1617.

Upon arrival in New France, Hébert was given ten acres of woodland to clear and farm in what is now downtown Quebec City. Carrying over from his earlier experiences with the Mi’kmaq, he was known for his mutually respectful relations with the Huron natives of the area.

After ten years cultivating the land, in 1627, he slipped on a patch of ice and died. Quebec City’s population had by then reached 100, and — after a brief English occupation from 1629 to 1632 — grew to over 1,000 a half-century later.

And the riding of Louis-Hébert, on Quebec City’s shore, has been won by four different parties — and five different MPs, including the current office-holder, Denis Blanchette of the NDP — over the last five elections.